This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

We’ve heard of software being installed on laptops to take control of their in-built cameras before, but one Orange County computer repair guy took it to a whole new level with modified error messages upping the chance of his victims being undressed in front of the laptop.

20-year-old Trevor Harwell got in the habit of installing a piece of software called Camcapture on the laptops he was repairing while working at Rezitech. With the software present on a machine Harwell could take control of its webcam remotely. His desired result was to capture women in a state of undress so he could take pictures of them.

Harwell wasn’t going to leave seeing these women naked up to chance, though. So what he did was to force the display of fake error messages on each machine. The messages stated that there was an issue with an internal sensor and the best way to solve it was to put the laptop “near hot steam for several minutes.” The reasoning for this, as explained in the eror message, was it would clean the sensor.

What Harwell was really trying to achieve was those laptops being carried into a bathroom while the owner had a shower. As surprising as it may sound, it worked, and Harwell collected thousands of images of his victims.

He got caught when he installed the software on a younger girls laptop and her mother became suspicious of the messages that kept popping up. She called the police and they discovered the setup.

Harwell has been arrested and faces multiple charges of computer access and fraud. He has been released on a $50,000 bond and Rezitech has since cut all ties and blocked his access to their system.

I can’t believe this worked long enough for him to collect thousands of pictures of women showering or undressing with a laptop placed in the corner of a steamy bathroom. Was Harwell clever enough to pick victims that had absolutely no clue about computers so would believe anything, or was he just lucky for much longer than he should have been?

Almost an exact copy of this happened in 2008, but that guy didn’t use fake error codes. He was caught when one victim noticed her webcam light came on whenever she went near the laptop.

With the amount of porn available on the web nowadays you do have to wonder why some individuals go to such lengths to see women nude in this way. All we can say is be very careful who you let repair your machine.